NISENAN
HERITAGE DAY 2025
Nisenan Heritage Day was created as a space of truth-telling, Cultural education, and community connection. It acknowledges the centuries of erasure, while centering the wisdom, stewardship, and sovereignty of the Nisenan People today.
Each year’s program highlights topics of pressing relevance for the Tribe, while creating bridges of understanding with the broader Sierra Foothill community.
NISENAN HERITAGE DAY 2025
The Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe and CHIRP invite the community to gather for the 16th Annual Nisenan Heritage Day (NHD) at the Miners Foundry in downtown Nevada City on Sunday, October 12th, 2025, for an afternoon that honors Nisenan history, uplifts living Culture, and strengthens relationships with the wider community.
This free, family-friendly event offers an important opportunity to learn directly from the Tribe, engage in meaningful dialogue, and celebrate the sovereignty and Cultural continuity of the Nisenan People in their Ancestral Homelands.
Sunday, October 12, 2025
12:00pm — 4:00pm
Miners Foundry | 325 Spring Street, Nevada City
Surviving Obscurity | Wisdom Despite Erasure
This year’s Nisenan Heritage Day theme, “Surviving Obscurity | Wisdom Despite Erasure,” underscores the Tribe’s ongoing efforts to reclaim narratives, heal historic wounds, and reassert visibility in the Ancestral Homelands.
The program brings together Tribal leaders, Culture Bearers, and partners to share perspectives on land stewardship, pathways to Land Back, environmental resilience and healing, and the power of art to reclaim history and strengthen Cultural identity.
“Themes for both Nisenan Heritage Day and the ‘Uba Seo Exhibition Opening revolve around buried stories and the path of reclamation.
With time, intention and great care, our latest efforts deliver a powerful demonstration of pairing collective Tribal memory with western historical records – culminating in unique educational experiences for the community and a powerful art exhibition.
It is an exciting moment to celebrate Nisenan Culture together.”
– Shelly Covert, NCR Nisenan Tribal Spokesperson and Executive Director of CHIRP
DIALOGUES ON LAND, STORY, & CULTURE
Dynamic panel discussions led by Tribal leaders, Culture Bearers, and community partners anchor the day, inviting the community into dialogue around land stewardship, rematriation, storytelling, and Cultural revitalization.
Complementing these conversations, the program also offers a series of short films shown hourly, a children’s activity corner, partner organization information booths, CHIRP merchandise, and community raffles.
The day begins with a panel on Land Stewardship, where Saxon Thomas and Syd Godfrey of CHIRP’s Tribally-Guided Stewardship Crew will be joined by Steve Wilensky of The Sierra Institute for Community & Environment to discuss how the Stewardship Crew is re-introducing Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (ITEK) into modern land management best practices to bring “good fire” back to the land and reshaping local approaches to environmental resiliency. The session will open with a short presentation on ITEK, how the Stewardship Crew was formed, and why this work is so urgently needed.
Formed in 2024, the Stewardship Crew has become a trusted, Tribally-led workforce in the Tribe’s Ancestral Homelands, while also providing support and collaboration to other Tribal communities and environmental partners.
Land Stewardship
Following the Stewardship panel, Cassandra Ferrera of the Center for Ethical Land Transitions and Erin Tarr of the Bear Yuba Land Trust will join in conversations on Navigating Land Back. Both organizations have been close collaborators with the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe and CHIRP, supporting rematriation efforts that restore Tribal relationship with Ancestral Homelands.
Together, they will share insights on the sacred and practical dimensions of Land Back, and how partnerships, reciprocity, and community commitment can make possible the return of land to Indigenous stewardship.
Navigating LandBack
The program also includes the premiere of a new short documentary film created in collaboration with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). This 11-minute film is the final installment of California Tribes and Climate Change: Voices from the Frontlines and features interviews with Nisenan Elders and Tribal Council members. The film highlights their perspectives on climate change, fire, water, and above all, the enduring responsibility the Tribe carries for their Ancestral Homelands.
Film Premiere
After the film premiere, Shelly Covert will lead a discussion about the sequence of three films playing hourly during Nisenan Heritage Day. Panelists include Annika Alexander-Ozinskas of OEHHA, who will reflect on the new collaborative documentary, and Heidi Quante, who will share about co-directing the Uba Seo film. Shelly will also highlight the Tribe’s recognition for We Are Still Here, which recently won a NorCal Emmy.
Together, these conversations emphasize the power of film to make the Tribe visible in new and accessible ways – carrying Nisenan voices, stories, and knowledge into spaces beyond written accounts, and revealing through story and song the layers of ancient wisdom and Cultural memory that Western frameworks cannot fully convey.
Film PANEL
PAMBLO: Remembering a Forgotten Leader
The day concludes with a session highlighting the new exhibition PAMBLO: Remembering a Forgotten Leader, opening October 11th at ‘Uba Seo: Nisenan Arts & Culture.
Shelly Covert, along with curators Mira Clark and Ruth Chase, will introduce the research, oral histories, and creative works that bring Chief Pamblo’s story to life.
The powerful exhibition seeks to “un-erase” a leader who guided his people through profound change and honor the continuity of Nisenan Culture. In doing so, it offers visitors an opportunity to learn, reflect, and recognize the strength and resilience of a People whose stories continue to shape this land.
Nisenan Heritage Day is more than an event – It is a powerful day of remembrance, reclamation, and story sharing.
Together, we’ll learn from Tribal leaders, celebrate Nisenan Cultural continuity, and witness how Tribally-guided land stewardship, rematriation, climate resilience, and art all weave into the ongoing story of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe.
Join us in honoring the past, celebrating the present, and shaping a future rooted in Nisenan visibility, sovereignty, and community connection.